CPTnet
17 September 2007
HEBRON: Water from the Israeli Army

by Kathie Uhler

"There is no water for you. Even if you die, I don't care!" These are the
words of a local Palestinian official to Abdul Hamid Osaily, a homeowner in
Wadi Al-Ghroos, whom CPTer Kathie Uhler and a translator visited on 3
September 2007. The official justified his refusal with the claim that some
Palestinians were stealing water from the area.

In fact, CPT had learned [from an authoritative source with the Hebron Land
Defense Committee-a Palestinian organization] that, earlier in the year,
Israel had diverted most of the West Bank water supply from the Bethlehem
area to an Israeli settlement bloc, known as Gush Etzion, and from there on
to Israel. The diversion has severely affected farm areas, especially in
the Wadi Al-Ghroos Beqa'a valley region, near Hebron, this summer. However,
while Israel does control eighty to ninety percent of the water, Uhler
learned from the translator that the Palestinian municipalities do not
evenly distribute the small amount of water allotted to them.

By August, the need for water in the Wadi had become desperate. So, Osaily
called for help from the commander of the Israeli military situated on a
hill top a few yards away from his home. "What do you want?" a guard wanted
to know when Osaily walked into the camp. "Water," Osaily replied simply.
"OK. You can have it," was the immediate and unexpected response.

The commander came to Osaily's home. When he saw the roomful of laundry not
touched for two months, the commander asked "How do you wash, bathe, shave?
We will help."

Osaily and the soldiers ran a one-hundred-meter hose between his home and
the camp, and water began to fill his cistern for the first time in four
months. The water is also filling the cisterns of the three other homes
surrounding the Osaily residence.

Uhler asked Osaily if he thought the camp would provide water for other
families in the area. He said it might be possible and that he would loan
out his hose, if that would help.

A spokesperson for another family in Wadi Al-Ghroos subsequently contacted
the camp. The family, a large, extended one, decided not to pursue their
query further. A leader in the family explained to Uhler, "We have lived
here for sixty years and have never asked the Israelis for anything. And
we're not going to start now."

[To view a photo of Osaily from his rooftop with the IDF camp nearby, click
on this hyperlink: http://www.cpt.org/gallery/album221]